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I finally made the time to play one of the BoDonkey tourneys last night. I had a blast.

I don't know everyone's screen name at Bodog yet, so it took a few orbits before I realized Waffles was at my table. Rizen was also at the table (two to my left), so I was looking forward to shoving atc against him to try to suckout for the bounty. Unfortunately, he had a family emergency and wasn't able to make the tourney. (Hopefully, all is well.)

Shortly after I realized who waffles was, I wound up busting him when we got all in on a 9 high flop with my K9 vs. his gutshot which turned into a open ended flush straight and flush draw on the turn. Luckily for me, he didn't hit one of his 28 outs (his calculation) and I busted him out. The bustout came five days late, since he had a bounty on him last Thursday.

It was good to see a few faces, (errr, screen names) that I haven't played with in a while. Unfortunately, I got knocked out by one of them, TripJax, when we got all in preflop with my QQ vs. his AK for the chip lead. Ace on the flop and GG me.

I had a blast playing blogger poker and plan to try and play again next week (not sure if there is a tourney tomorrow night).

I was able to get in a decent amount of hands since Wednesday in between a Friday night Christmas party (yeah, pretty early for a Xmas party), a trip to the Gainesville for the Gator's stomping of the Citadel (yeah, that's right they managed to beat the powerhouse), and completing a project over the weekend.

Goals (from 11/19 to 12/31) Check up

1. Play 30,000 Hands of LHE (mix of 6 max and Full Ring)I put in 2,790 hands of LHE with a profit of $862.50. I was all over the place and bounced above and below the waffles (break even) mark for the first 2k hands. I then went on a huge heater followed by the chasers getting there. The graphs look pretty funny because it includes a mix of 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, and 30/60. I would prefer to play 10/20 and 15/30 Full Ring LHE, but the games don't run all the time. All the hands were on pokerstars since the 5/10 Full Ring LHE games rarely get started on FTP.

I think that I struggled with getting too complacent when multi-tabling and not paying enough attention to changes in how other players at the tables were playing against me or which players were tilting/spewing. I am going to try to pay more attention and will probably cut down from 4 to 2 (or 1) tables when I find myself not focusing enough.

Pokerstars FPPs (I'll probably devote a post just to the PS VIP system later)

I made 8,633 FPPs which is equivalent to an additional $138. I'm platinum star and haven't played enough on PS to make supernova this year.

I'm not sure how to calculate your MGR with Holdem Manager (anyone know how to get this number), but I think that I am getting a much higher RB % with pokerstars' VIP program than the 27% RB on FTP. According to a 2+2 article, the RB equivalent for 5/10 LHE full ring is 26.5% for platinum. That is the highest LHE game that they list and I'm sure it is dramatically higher for the bigger limits. I should be able to make Supernova next year, if I keep playing LHE on pokerstars. It is incredible how many VPPs you get per hand playing LHE.

Graphs

Graph from 11/19/08 through 11/23/08

Graph on yesterday's craziness

2. Play my PCA step tickets until they are gone or I have a seat. - I currently have one step 4 ticket and two step 2 tickets

I played both of the Step 2 tickets and busted out before the money in both. I'll spare you the bad beat stories.

I was pretty disappointed with my Step 4 game. I wound up finishing third (replay of Step 4) after a very long 3 way battle for the Step 5 tickets that included the short stacks winning almost every time they got in behind. I think I went out aipf with AT vs. KQ. :(

3. Make an attempt to play at least one PCA super sat.

I played two turbo sats to the Sunday Million and didn't cash in either. I don't think I can justify shelling out $650 for the PCA super sat, so I'll keep playing sub-sats and try to build up enough W$/T$.

4. Play at least 15 MTTs and maintain a positive ROI in them.

I haven't had the time to devote to playing any MTTs, but will probably get a few in this week.

So, after the break even first 2k hands, I wound up finishing with an OK start. Hopefully, I can go on a big heater this week playing against all the casual players that are off during Thanksgiving week.

I am going to try to start blogging more regularly, but have been struggling with ideas. Setting goals and tracking them on the blog used to work (or at least until I abandoned the goals). With that in mind, I picked a few short term goals for now until the end of the year and I will track them on the blog.

Goals (from 11/19/08 through 12/31/08)

1. Play 30,000 Hands of LHE (mix of 6 max and Full Ring)

2. Play my PCA step tickets until they are gone or I have a seat. - I currently have one step 4 ticket and two step 2 tickets

3. Make an attempt to play at least one PCA super sat. - There aren't many good sub-sats, so I may have to try to build up enough T$

4. Play at least 15 MTTs and maintain a positive ROI in them.

I'll update the status regularly and post graphs and interesting hands. Hopefully, this will motivate me to play and post more.

I posted about my crappy experience with them back in March. Their customer service was horrible. It looks like others felt the same way and have migrated to other electronic stores as their first choice.

"There is no mystery to why the country's No. 2 electronics retailer, Circuit City, filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 10. You could blame it on the bad economy or decreased consumer spending — which played no small role — but the real culprit is good old-fashioned bad management."

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am glad that the public told them what they thought of the CC experience. They voted with their feet and went to other stores. On the other hand, it sucks that a lot of their employees are going to have to look for jobs in this economy. HH Gregg just opened up several stores in Orlando, so maybe the competent CC employees can find jobs over there.

If you are looking for electronics in the near future, they will probably have some good sales. Just don't buy the extended warranty.

I only got a chance to play two of the events and wasn't able to cash in either. I feel like I played pretty well in both though.

Event #1 $200 + $16 NL Hold 'em 6-Max - went out in the 1,800s out of 5,000+. My first 2 tables were really good and I was able to steadily chip up. Unfortunately, I was moved to a table shortly after the first break with the massive chip leader two to my left. He was calling and raising everything. He busted the guy directly to my left and another guy that was top 20 in chips was moved there. Weeeee!! Tough to pick your spots when you have around 12k chips, the guy to your left has 45k and the guy to his left has 70k. I wound up playing a big pot against the chip leader with my QQ against his KT. We got a lot of chips in on a T high flop, turn was a K and I was somehow able to slow down enough to not lose all of my chips on the hand. About 10 hands later I got all-in with a straight and flush draw against his top pair and didn't hit.

Event #5 $200 + $16 Limit Hold'em 6-Max - I felt like I was playing pretty damn good and had some guys at my table that had no clue how to play LHE, especially in the early levels of a tourney. Shortly after the first break, I got rivered twice in two huge pots within about 10 minutes. Both hands were almost identical. I flop a set, capped on flop, capped on turn, flush gets there on river, check/call, lose to guying chasing a flush. :( Not much you can do in a 6 max LHE tourney, excpect bet the heck out of your monsters.

I wasn't able to play any of the other FTOPS events over the weekend.

It doesn't look like I will be able to play the Mixed Event today, so the Wed night turbo is probably my next event.

OK, maybe it just feels like #98. FTOPS X starts tonight with the $216 6 max. I'm not sure if I have enough energy to stay up and play it tonight. It'll probably be a game time decision.

I plan to play at least 3 events depending on my schedule. I really want to play Event #10 Mixed Holdem since I have been playing a lot of LHE lately. It is at an awkward time (Monday at 2 PM), so I'm not sure if I will be able to play.

I was bored a couple of weeks ago and didn't feel like playing a tourney or NL cash games. I fired up 3 different tables for a change of pace - a 2-7 triple draw table, a 5 card draw table, and a limit holdem table. It got a little hectic playing 3 different game types at the same time, but it was a good change. I wound up finishing up about $50 in the 5 card draw, down about $50 in the 2-7 triple draw, and up around $700 in the limit game. I think playing 3 different game types at the same time helped challenge me and kept me from going on auto-pilot (which happens way too often).

One thing that stood out when playing limit holdem was how incredibly loose the game had become. I used to play a decent amount of LHE on UB about 5 years ago. I have jumped in a limit game here and there over the years, but hadn't really played any LHE in about 3 years. The games were getting very very nitty back then. Most casual players had moved to NL cash games and tourneys. Most of the remaining LHE players were grinders or at least had a clue how to play. Table selection was difficult and the mid-stakes full ring LHE games almost dried up completely.

I decided to give LHE a chance again a couple of days later. The games were just as loose and exploitable as they had been a couple of nights earlier. I was putting a ton of thought into every hand and had to take a lot more breaks than usual because I was getting mentally exhausted. I suprised myself at how much concentration I was having to put into a game where you can only bet the minimum. I started off running very good. My big hands were holding and I was getting a lot of action. I found myself liking LHE again. I used to think it was the most boring form of poker, but my opinion has changed dramitically. Position is huge. Meta-game is huge. Playing off your image is huge. Etc. Etc.

I've put in around 10k hands of LHE and things are going better than I could have imagined. I'm going to keep playing and hopefully the run will continue. Maybe Limit Holdem isn't a dead form of poker after all.